When the Democrats were gun-shy early last year about criticizing President Trump’s ramp-up of immigrant raids and deportations, that approach was substantively bad but made sense electorally. The percentage of Americans who wanted immigration levels to decrease had jumped from 31 percent in 2021, at the start of President Biden’s tenure, to 55 percent in 2024. Similarly, even though support for abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is at its highest level ever, only about 46 percent of Americans currently hold that stance. That number is likely lower in purple and red states, making it a somewhat dicey electoral position for the party.
But overall, views on immigration and ICE are rapidly shifting leftward as more Americans recoil at the administration’s crackdown on cities like Minneapolis, an ICE agent’s killing of Renee Nicole Good, and the shooting of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection officers. There is a huge opportunity for Democrats to push for a new vision for immigration enforcement in America—basically anything short of abolishing ICE, and eventually that too.
The party should lean into a coming fight over Department of Homeland Security funding (which expires on January 30) and demand that Trump withdraw ICE personnel from Minneapolis and never again deploy them to punish blue cities.
Polling tells a very clear story—Americans have seen Trump’s immigration agenda, and they reject it. The number of Americans who want immigration levels dropped has plunged back to 30 percent, according to Gallup polling. Fifty-seven percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, while only 41 percent approve, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll. Fifty-seven percent disagree with how ICE is conducting its duties, compared to only 37 percent who agree, per YouGov.
And all of these surveys were taken before Pretti’s killing, which drew condemnation from professional athletes and others who usually stay out of politics.
“Especially on immigration, policy has moved far to the right, and far beyond what the public supports. Hence the huge swings,” says G. Elliott Morris, author of the excellent newsletter “Strength in Numbers.”
These numbers should cause a shift in Democratic Party strategy. Post-2024, party leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffies generally settled on an economic-centric approach. So they largely sidestepped aggressive rhetoric or strong opposition as Trump defunded colleges, banned diversity and inclusion efforts, and increased immigration enforcement. They were willing to engage in a government shutdown last fall in part because it was very tied to an economic issue (health care subsidies for Obamacare).
Schumer, after watching the 2025 electoral successes of New York’s Zohran Mamdani and other candidates who emphasized affordability, had recently doubled down on this strategy. And while I would have liked to see Democrats do more to try to limit Trump’s autocratic actions on noneconomic issues last year, this strategy made electoral sense.
But with Trump’s standing on immigration issues now low and the public more open to immigration and wary of ICE, there is far less electoral risk in directly confronting the president on what had been one of his strongest issues. Democrats of course should still talk about economic issues, but immigration, and particularly immigration enforcement, is now in their favor electorally.
And the substantive case has never been clearer. During Trump’s first term, the idea of abolishing ICE became prominent because the agency was conducting overly aggressive raids, often targeting people who were nonviolent. Now, not only are those raids even more extensive but Trump has turned ICE and CBP into a national police force under his command, deployed to cities that he dislikes and literally murdering people who object to his rule. It’s one of the most radical, authoritarian policies of his presidency.
So what ICE changes should Democrats push for? I am not sure that national party leaders or figures in red or purple states should call for abolishing ICE right now. ICE abolition is ultimately the right policy. ICE has only existed since 2003. Abolishing the agency and relying on other parts of local, state, and federal governments to enforce immigration would work just fine. Abolishing ICE is substantially different from and easier than abolishing local police departments.
But polls suggest the term abolish turns off some voters. And if the idea seems politically risky, the party can’t unify around it because swing-state members will keep objecting to it. But there is plenty short of abolition to do. Democrats should try to roll back the massive funding increases that ICE received last year. They should ban agents from wearing masks unless absolutely necessary. They should put restrictions on how ICE is deployed to cities. ICE immediately leaving Minneapolis must be a condition for any further DHS funding. The administration must allow local and state investigations of Good’s and Pretti’s killings and potentially charges filed against the officers. The quotas for arrests that ICE has set must be withdrawn.
At the same time, abolishing ICE needs to be on the party’s long-term agenda. An agency that can be deployed as a fascist police force for future Republican presidents can’t remain in place. The next Democratic president must either outright eliminate ICE or downsize it so that the agency can never repeat its actions of 2025 again. So Democrats in more liberal areas should keep making that case and building support for getting rid of ICE.
And it’s critical that Democrats running in purple and red states and more moderate presidential candidates focus on policies short of abolition that they can support now, while also not demonizing the idea of abolition in the future. We can’t afford a repeat of the defunding the police debate, which many center-left Democrats used as an opportunity not to emphasize their reform-but-not-defund proposals but to instead triangulate against the party’s left wing, praise the cops, and weaken the case for any reforms.
There are some good signs from moderates on this issue. New York Representative Tom Suozzi, who usually revels in slamming the party’s left and was one of the seven Democrats who voted for increased DHS funding in the House last week, put out a fiery statement on Monday declaring, “President Trump must immediately end ‘Operation Metro Surge’ and ICE’s occupation of Minneapolis.” Even better was a recent remark from Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, who has established himself as a moderate voice in the party and often takes more conservative stands on immigration. Asked in a CNN interview about his opposition to abolishing ICE, Gallego used different language than his more progressive colleagues but didn’t bash their ideas.
“ICE needs to be totally torn down. It has to be created in the image of what people want, right? And what does that look like?” he said, according to The Hill. “From my experience running in Arizona, in a very hard, hard state when it comes to immigration and immigration issues, people want immigration enforcement that goes after criminals, right, and focuses on criminals, and immigration enforcement that is actually focused on security, and not the goon squad that has come from Stephen Miller and Donald Trump.”
“Totally torn down” may not be “abolish,” but it’s a call for major changes and leaves room for abolition down the line.
But that’s in the long term. Right now, what Democrats need to avoid is meaningless symbolic actions. I hate Kristi Noem too, but she is not going to be impeached and removed from office. I worry that the Democrats calling for that are simply trying to duck the underlying issues. The debate over DHS funding gives the Democrats a chance to actually change ICE’s policies right now. They need to take it. There is no longer any electoral excuse not to.